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Prometheus, in Greek mythology

(Encyclopedia)Prometheus prōmēˈthēəs [key], in Greek mythology, great benefactor of mankind. He was the son of the Titan Iapetus and of Clymene or Themis. Because he foresaw the defeat of the Titans by the Oly...

Doowop Music

(Encyclopedia) Doowop (also spelled doo-wop or doo wop) music, American popular vocal music style, c. late 1940s-early 1960s. Doowop is a form of vocal harmony mu...

Jones, George Glenn

(Encyclopedia)Jones, George Glenn, 1931–2013, American country music singer and guitarist, b. Saratoga, Tex. Influenced by Roy Acuff and Hank Williams, he began recording in 1954; among his early hits were Why Ba...

onager

(Encyclopedia)onager ŏnˈəjər [key] or Persian wild ass, wild ass of central Asia, Equus hemonius onager. Formerly classified as a separate species, it is one of the several subspecies of Asian wild ass (E. hemo...

Cabot, John

(Encyclopedia)Cabot, John, fl. 1461–98, English explorer, probably b. Genoa, Italy. He became a citizen of Venice in 1476 and engaged in the Eastern trade of that city. This experience, it is assumed, was the sti...

Todorov, Tzvetan

(Encyclopedia)Todorov, Tzvetan, 1939–2017, Bulgarian-French literary theorist, historian of ideas, and sociologist, b. Sofia, Bulgaria, Ph.D. Univ. of Paris, 1966. He joined (1968) the National Center for Scienti...

Banks, Russell

(Encyclopedia)Banks, Russell, 1940–, American writer, b. Newton, Mass., grad. Univ. of North Carolina (1967). Banks is known for fiction that explores the bleaker aspects of American working-class life with empat...

Orphic Mysteries

(Encyclopedia)Orphic Mysteries or Orphism, religious cult of ancient Greece, prominent in the 6th cent. b.c. According to legend Orpheus founded these mysteries and was the author of the sacred poems from which the...

dwarfism

(Encyclopedia)dwarfism, condition in which an animal or plant is less than normal in size and lacks the capacity for normal growth. Dwarfism is deliberately produced and perpetuated in certain species (e.g., in bre...

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